


Feet Upon the Ground

by VerbenaHA



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 04:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14301078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerbenaHA/pseuds/VerbenaHA
Summary: Chapters Eleven and Twelve of King's Rising from the perspective of Laurent.





	Feet Upon the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Italicized quotations are PUBLISHED CANON by C.S. Pacat  
> PLEASE comment any concerns

_“You are a patricide, you killed your own father, King Theomedes of Akielos.”_

It was actually a little more difficult than usual to keep from fidgeting. Laurent wanted to squirm in his shirtsleeves, knowing that he would not. He needed to be still and plan, but his attention was pulled to Damen. He quietly mulled over the careful steps that had struck down the proud _Prince Damianos_ to this deceitful place. To the soldiers in the room, this all seemed black and white; the Regency acting mercifully on Laurent’s behalf and Laurent cheekily tossing it back. But now this accusation against Damianos? The hall of Akielons erupted into outrage.

                Laurent could see it in Damen’s face and hear it in his voice when he cleared the hall of people: he was shaken, badly. Uncle had a talent for cruelly and deliberately altering fact. Most days, Laurent felt like a stone thrown into a stagnant pool, and had been in the pool for so long he had forgotten how agonizing it was. Now Damen had been dropped into these waters, experiencing uncle’s lies firsthand.

                Uncle had done this to Damen.

                Damen stood and went to lean his weight against a windowsill. Laurent followed, not entirely certain what he expected Damen to do while he was like this. Neither of them spoke for some time, standing still. Laurent could imagine it: the ache of watching family pass away slowly. How different would it have felt to watch father die sluggishly? Or Auguste?

                “ _He thinks he can provoke me. He can’t,”_ Damen said after a fashion, “ _I am not going to act in anger or in haste. I am going to take back the provinces of Akielos one by one, and when I march into Ios, I will make him pay for what he has done.”_ Good, he was beginning to think defensively.

                He looked suddenly at Laurent and said, “ _You can’t be considering his offer.”_ Uncle’s offer? “ _You can’t go to Ios. Laurent, you won’t get a trial. He’ll kill you.”_

                _“I’d get a trial.”_ A one-on-one clash with uncle was the opportunity of a lifetime! But as tempting as it was; _“It’s what he wants. He wants me proven unfit. He wants the Council to ratify him as King so that he can rule with his claim wholly legitimized.”_

                _“But—”_

                _“I’d get a trial. He’d have a parade of witnesses, and each one would swear me a traitor. Laurent, the debauched shirker who sold his country to Akielos and spread his legs for the Akielon prince-killer. And when I had no reputation left, I’d be taken to the public square and killed in front of a crowd.”_ Laurent said all this, forgetful that his candor could shock Damen. _“I’m not considering his offer,”_ he concluded, and it was the truth.

                “ _Then what?”_ Damen asked.

                Right, the missing piece. Laurent suddenly felt sick. _“There’s something else.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“I mean that my uncle does not hold out a hand for someone to knock it aside._ _He sent that herald to us for a reason. There’s something else.”_ Both he and Damen were now waiting for a missing piece of information that would tempt them to Ios and death. _“There’s always something else.”_ But what could it possibly be?

Sound from the doorway, a soldier coming in. “ _It’s the Lady Jokaste,” said Pallas. “She’s asking to see you.”_

                He said it to Damen who looked to Laurent and said, “ _Deal with it.”_

                Interesting. Damen recognized that his emotions were compromised right now. Laurent nodded and followed Pallas out of the hall.

 

~’~

 

                “You are not who I asked for,” said Jokaste.

                At a glance, Laurent supposed that Damen must have fallen in love with her on sight. She was regal and beautiful. Laurent looked at her coolly, leaning back against the wall. “He sent me to greet the Lady spending the night in imprisoned.”

                “imprisoned?” She barely lifted a brow. “You don’t mean in this cell, do you.”

                “You had a choice, once, to stay out of this web. Now you are tangled in it.”

                There was a long pause where the two of them settled into the feeling of combat: neutralizing their expressions as though they were playing cards, unwilling to give anything away.

                It was she who broke the silence. “Do you know where Kastor found the name Damen?” She laid back, calm, in her reclining seat, conversational. “A slave came up with it. His close friends picked it up, but that one slave had exclusive permission to call him Damen.”

                Was Jokaste jealous?

                “Where is that slave now?” he asked.

                “Dead with the other slaves in his household it would be unwise to send to you.”

                Laurent lividly recalled the look of Erasmus’ terrified face. He did not ask how the slaves had been divided into who would be uprooted and who would die.

                Jokaste said suddenly: “The ones who would recognize him. They might give away the trick.”

                So Damen was the coin in a disappearing trick? Laurent locked down his expression a bit more carefully. Jokaste continued, “Her name was Lykaios. Slender, with fair skin, and hair like candlelight. Sound familiar?”

                “I know he finds me wholly unexceptional,” he said. Jokaste was resentful, but her blows were too soft. Years of men jeering behind Laurent’s back had hardened his heart to vanity. He was not a jealous man.

                There was a creak of a door opening somewhere… They both heard it.

                “And he is…?”

 _“He’s not coming,”_ Laurent chirped, almost too quickly. If that was Damen down the hall Laurent hoped he would stay out of this. Jokaste wanted something and Damen was not fit for discussion just at the moment, let alone with a woman he once loved. And still might.

_“Damianos has sent me his bed boy. Blond, blue-eyed, and all laced up like a virgo intacta. You’re just his type.”_

So prepared to do battle they had skipped introductions. Though, Jokaste must have surmised his identity. He said, _“You know who I am.”_

                “ _The prince du jour,”_ she replied.

                Surely there was a less flattering way to describe him. Still, for all her cunning, Laurent reminded himself that this was a very jealous and disturbed woman. _“If you’re asking, did I fuck him, the answer is yes.”_ Better to admit it and get it out of the way, lest she attempt any more jabs at his virginity. But Jokaste spun it around quickly.

                “ _I think we both know you weren’t the one fucking him,_ ” she said. _“You were on your back with your legs in the air. He hasn’t changed that much. The question is how much you liked it.”_

                “ _I see. We are going to trade stories? Shall I tell you my preferred position?”_

 _“I imagine it’s similar to mine,”_ she replied. It was just another joke at his expense about femininity.

                He glanced at the cell walls deliberately and said, “ _Confined?”_ That shut her up for a moment.

                She was staring at him. Fine, let her stare. “ _Are you asking what it was like?”_ she said. “ _Laurent of Vere. They say you’re frigid.”_

                ‘At least she’s saying it to my face.’ Inwardly, Laurent felt a twinge underneath the new scar on his shoulder. ‘She should be grateful she’s not tied up.’

                She continued. _“They say you rebuff all your suitors, that no man has been good enough to prise your legs apart. I believe you thought it would be brutish and physical, and maybe a part of you even wanted it that way. But you and I both know that Damen does not make love like that. He took you slowly. He kissed you until you started to want it.”_

                She was good with dirty words. Laurent theatrically fanned himself with his fingers. “ _Don’t stop on my account_.”

                So she went on, explicitly describing—vaguely—how intimate a night with Damen would be. “ _You left out the part near the end,”_ said Laurent, a faint smirk, “ _when it was so good I let myself forget what he’d done.”_

                The edge of her mouth curled up. “ _Oh dear. That was the truth.”_

                Wilted is the best way to describe Laurent’s expression, the pretty curve of his mouth melting into a frown. _“It’s heady, isn’t it?”_ Jokaste added, taking hold of her victory. “ _He was born to be a king. He’s not a stand-in, or a second choice like you are. He rules men just by breathing. When he walks into a room, he commands it. People love him. Like they loved your brother.”_

                “ _My dead brother,”_ he said. Jokaste was happily evading something by throwing insults. _“Shall we now do the part where I spread for my brother’s killer? You can describe it again.”_

                “ _Is it difficult to ride with a man who is more of a king than you are?”_ There was that word again—king—to describe Damen. Laurent cautioned her. She ignored it. “ _Or is that what you like about it? That Damen is what you will never be. That he has surety, self-belief, strength of conviction.”_ There was a fire burning in her eyes. _“Those are things that you yearn for.”_ She was giving away too much. _“When he focuses it all on you, it makes you feel like you can do anything.”_

                Jokaste was in love with Damen.

 _“Now we are both telling the truth.”_  

                He paused again. Unexpectedly, probably to change the subject, she said, “ _Meniados is not going to defect from Kastor to Damianos.”_

                “ _Why not?”_

_“Because when Meniados fled Karthas, I encouraged him to head straight for Kastor, who will kill him for leaving me alone here.”_

                Laurent was coming to realize something… that he did not pity Damen, but empathized. Jokaste was very manipulative. That sound from beyond the door might have been nothing, or it might have someone—Damen— sucking in breath.

                _“We have now dispensed with pleasantries,”_ she continued. _“I am in possession of certain information. You will offer me clemency in exchange for what I know. There will be a series of negotiations, then, when we have decided on a mutually beneficial arrangement, I will return to Kastor in Ios. After all, that is why Damianos sent you here.”_

                This woman was surprisingly obvious. Facts; Jokaste cared for Damen—if the way she praised him did not prove it, then the easy way she had called him by his nickname for half of the conversation was enough. Jokaste had asked for clemency—if not for her own sake, then perhaps the sake of her child. Jokaste wanted to get back to Ios—home. Laurent already knew that she was hiding something, the trick would be to get her to illuminate without bending to her expectations.

                _“No,”_ said Laurent. _“He sent me to tell you that you’re not important. You’ll be held here until he is crowned in Ios, then you will be executed for treason. He’s never going to see you again.”_ He stood up and gave the impression that he would leave. _“But thank you, for the information about Meniados. That was helpful.”_

He clamped his mouth shut and made for the door.

                “ _You haven’t asked me about my son,”_ she called after him. Laurent turned and listened to her spin a tale of her time in labor only to send her son away when soldiers came knocking.

                “ _Really, is this all?”_ Secretly, Laurent was relieved and a little thrilled: Jokaste was an impertinent bug he could squash under his boot if he wanted to. _“A few pinpricks, and the desperate appeal of motherhood? I thought you were an opponent. Did you really think a prince of Vere would be moved by the fate of a bastard’s child?”_

                But Jokaste said simply, _“You should be. He is the son of a king,”_ and Laurent blanched. This whole time, she had only ever called Damen “king”, not Kastor. However, the babe would be raised by whoever won the crown. This was the missing piece, the bait tossed out to be hooked on: an heir to the throne of Akielos!

                _“You have sent Damianos’ son to my uncle,”_ he said. Vere’s Regent was cradling Akielos’ future in his putrid, destructive hands. He did not truly listen to whatever she said next because he only barely saw Damen through the grating in the cell door, a shadow of color receding into the dark hallway, a whisper of footsteps running back upstairs. Laurent followed him, quickly.

                “Wait,” he said and moved faster. “Wait!” Laurent could see the back of him, moving away, deaf to Laurent’s level voice. ‘Damen!’ he very nearly shouted, but he clamped his mouth shut. Laurent wanted to reach out and grab him, to take him by the arm and reassure him that... What? That the baby Jokaste had sent away would be alright? That Kastor was innocent? And perhaps the sky would rain apple cider.

 

~’~

 

                In the minutes since Damen had cleared out everyone, some soldiers had meandered back in looking for orders, not to mention the servants going about their normal duties. Laurent told them with embellishment to get out and stay out. He sent the message around the fort to go nowhere near the king of Akielos.

                He retired back to the throne room. Hysteria was bubbling in the back of his mind and he pressed his hands to his eyes—what a mess! Damianos’ son in uncle’s arms. He poured a goblet of water but set it down. After a long time he realized his throat was dry and took a sip. He thought of his uncle and the offer to come to Ios to be given a trial. He had not considered going but, with this new information, he was considering it now. The trial could be an excuse to get close to Ios, but it was a dangerous, suicidal gamble and he knew it. He wanted to reel his arm back and throw the cup across the room, wanted to scream, to fall to his knees and keep screaming. Uncle could make him feel that way, sometimes. But no. When Laurent was angry he turned aggression into words. But no one was here for him to hiss at, so he sat down in his throne and thought.

                Against all self-preservation, Laurent made a plan to take back Lady Jokaste’s son. The seed of an idea came to him, and he cultivated it. When the gold sunlight on the walls faded to pale moonlight, someone came into the hall.

                “Don’t fret, it’s only me,” said Jord. “Everyone’s talking, but it’s only talk.” Laurent said nothing. “I’m sorry, I’ve interrupted your meeting with yourself.”

                Laurent hid a small grin. “What a pretty mess this is.”

                “No one has bothered him, as you ordered.” Him, being Damen. “But his men are looking for command. And… so am I.” Laurent said nothing and Jord tilted his head, watching. “Is there anything I can help with?”

                Laurent was thinking about Damen now. _The poor, dumb brute_. Aloud he said, “See if he needs anything.”

                Jord did not move. He said, “I think what Damen needs right now is a friend.” It was a cautious power play, passively encouraging Laurent to do it himself.

                “No,” said Laurent.

                “I’m sorry,” Jord said, “It just seems to me that he deeply cares about you and your opinion.”

                Laurent crossed his legs and thought about that. Damen had been ripped from his home, his household killed. But Laurent had not helped him, no. He thought about Damen, brutalized, in chains; tied to a post; drugged. ‘After everything I’ve done to him,’ he thought, ‘he can’t honestly want succor from me.’

                Jord was watching him until he said, “It makes me nervous when you’re quiet like that.”

                “He doesn’t deserve this,” Laurent said very calmly.

                “Neither do you,” replied Jord. “Is there anything you can tell me about what’s happened?”

                He went rigid while he spoke, “Say nothing of this yet, but there is a new pawn on the board. It will need to be dealt with.”

                Jord nodded slowly. “Understood.”

                “Someone should see to him,” Laurent tried again.

                “Damen is in his rooms,” said Jord, still unmoving. Laurent stared at him and almost grinned. Jord was coming back to himself after… well. He owed the man an apology. Except that Laurent was not good with apologies. He could try later. Maybe.

                Laurent stood and headed for the stairs. “Get some rest. It’s probably going to be a long night. Tell his men they will see him in the morning.”

                “Will they?”

                Laurent made no answer.

 

~’~

 

                Such sorry, miserable places as bedrooms were not good for clear thinking. Someone who had been dealt so many destructive blows to the mind and heart needed to be watched, and closely. ‘It may have been foolish to keep everyone away for so long,’ he thought. ‘Why did he have to run to bed?’

                Laurent stopped in front of the chamber door wondering whether or not he should knock first. The irony was not lost on him that he had followed Damen, again, to a bedroom.

                _“How did you think it would be? That you would take me to your bed for the public consummation?”_

                Laurent hesitated. There was a strong possibility that he would walk into the room and the Akielon King would turn him out.

                He had walked up the stairs wondering how he was supposed to provide comfort. He had a strategy to save Jokaste’s child and decided to start with that. Without speaking, he opened the door. It was very dark: torch and moonlight the only radiance coming through the windows. Under different circumstances, it would have been peaceful but at the moment it was a nest of woe. Damen was sitting on the edge of the bed. Laurent did not know what he expected Damen to be doing but it was reassuring to see him still intact. Except that when Damen looked up he was visibly disquieted.

                Words failed him. _“No, I’m not here to—”_ Damen’s pain was the result of uncle’s bloodless plotting. Laurent wanted to take that pain away. “ _I’m just here_.”

                An old memory came into Laurent’s mind, giving him an idea. With no small amount of hesitation, Laurent walked forward. Damen was motionless and silent. ‘So far, so good.’

                Cautiously— so, so careful— he picked up his hand and laid it on Damen’s back. One second, two… To Laurent’s shock, Damen wordlessly leaned into him. Laurent very nearly reeled and wondered if the man was even in his right mind to allow this. After a few minutes, the proximity began to make him nervous and he pulled away. _“Now you are taking advantage of my kind-hearted instincts.”_  He sat down beside Damen, trying to relax.

 _“You aren’t going to offer me one of your gaudy Veretian handkerchiefs?”_ Damen said. There was the briefest grin on his lips. Humor seemed to be helping.

                _"You could use the clothing you're wearing. It's about the same size."_

                _"Your poor Veretian sensibilities. All thos wrists and ankles."_

_"And arms and thighs and every other part."_

                Damen abruptly stopped and said, _“My father is dead.”_

                ‘So is mine,’ but Laurent kept that thought to himself. His pulse was racing: he had no idea how to adequately respond, but he was not here, during an hour of need, to make things worse. Damen kept talking. _“You thought he was a warmonger. An aggressive, war-hungry king, who invaded your country on the flimsiest of pretexts, hungry for land and the glory of Akielos.”_

_“No, we don’t have to do this now.”_

_“A barbarian with barbaric ambitions, fit only to rule by the sword. You hated him.”_

                Change the subject. _“I hated you. I hated you so badly I thought I’d choke on it. If my uncle hadn’t stopped me I would have killed you. And then you saved my life, and every time I needed you, you were there, and I hated you for that, too.”_

 _“I killed your brother.”_ With some effort, Damen was looking directly at Laurent. _“What are you doing here?”_

                ‘To tell you that I’m sorry,’ Laurent thought, but it was much easier to say, _“I know what it’s like to lose family.”_

                Damen asked, _“Is there no way forward for us?”_

_“You mean, will I come back to your bed for the little time we have left?”_

                _“I mean that we hold centre. We hold everything from Acquitart to Sicyon. Can we not call it a kingdom and rule it together?”_

                Something like hope bloomed in Laurent’s chest that he tried to suppress. Damen was very nearly confessing something… considering a future… together?

                But Damen added one more thought; _“Am I such a poorer prospect than a Patran Princess or a daughter of the Empire?”_

                  _“How can you trust me, after what your own brother did to you?”_

                Damen’s answer felt like cool water over a burn; _“Because he was false and you are true. I have never known a truer man. I think if I gave you my heart, you would treat it tenderly.”_

                Laurent’s cheeks felt hot and he turned to look at the wall. Damen was bewitching, but this did not make sense.  Damen could have been exposing his heart for Laurent to see, or he could be lying. There was a green, nervous wonder that wanted to— but this was _Damianos, prince-killer_.

                But what if…

                “ _When you make love to me like that, I can’t think.”_

 _“Don’t think,”_ said Damen.

                What if Damen was…

 _“Don’t think,”_ he said again.

_“Don’t toy with me. I—have not the means to—defend against this.”_

What if Damen was telling the truth?

_“I don’t toy with you.”_

                _“I—”_

_“Don’t think.”_

                It was possible that Damen was everything he claimed to be while Laurent had blinded himself with hate. It was possible he gave Laurent guidance out of absurd goodwill. It was possible that Damen came to Laurent’s rescue over and over out of mercy. It was possible that when Damen made love to him— it was all possible if he would just reach out and believe it!

                To turn off his mind and just reach out was such a pretty suggestion. He spun around to Damen and said, _“Kiss me.”_ Oops. The desire for Damen to press his lips against his was real, but the hesitation was still there. Damen noticed, and so he slowly picked up Laurent’s hand and kissed the palm. _“I meant—”_

 _“Don’t let you think?”_ Damen realized.

                _“I’m not—”_ Laurent was very carefully keeping his body from trembling. Damen did not move again and the stillness was frustrating. He wanted Damen to act, but how? And to what end? _“I’m not an innocent who needs his hand held through every step.”_

 _“Aren’t you?”_ Damen countered.

                ‘Curse Damen and his intolerable patience!’ Yes. Laurent was unused to this! His inexperience made him a laughing stock. Their first time in Ravenel, Laurent had been calculating; the lovemaking had been designed. Or it had, at first, because Laurent had such naïveté he never expected Damen to relinquish control into Laurent’s hands, looking for consent in every move.

                ‘Teach me,’ he thought, but aloud he stammered, _“At Ravenel, I— It had been a long time since I had—with anyone. I was nervous.”_

                _“I know.”_

                It may have been a bad idea to bring up Ravenel, since Damen’s heart had been crushed by the confession afterwards. Laurent bit the inside of his cheek to keep from hyperventilating. _“There has… There has only been one other person.”_

_“I’m a little more experienced than that.”_

_“Yes, that is immediately apparent.”_

_“Is it?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Laurent, I’d never hurt you,”_ Damen said. Unbelievable. Even though Damen’s world had been shaken—body visibly affected by grief—yet, he knew Laurent _needed_ to talk. If there was one thing Damen was inhumanly good at, it was compassion. Even under the stars at Marlas, when Damen had found him outside on the grass; “ _I came because I thought you might want to talk,”_ he had said. Damen had opened the door to talk about Auguste but Laurent couldn’t bear it. So he had taunted Damen. But he would not taunt Damen now, not like this.

_“I know that I did hurt you. I hurt you, Laurent.”_

                _“That’s enough,”_ he said. If he thought about Auguste— _“Stop.”_

                _“It wasn’t right. You were just a boy. You didn’t deserve what happened to you.”_

                “ _I said that’s_ enough.”

                “ _Is it so hard to hear_?” Yes, it was. He said nothing, biting his cheek again. Damen took the hint and leaned back on the bed. Laurent let it sink in, that Damen was truly trying to make reparation. It stirred the warm hope in his chest again, giving him gooseflesh under his sleeves. Really, Damen was a worthy man and in order to move forward, Laurent needed to admit that to himself: it was frustrating that he had not gotten to know Damen better, and sooner.

                Damen said eventually; _“My first time, there was a lot of rolling around. I was eager and had no idea what to do.”_

                Laurent tried to speak…

                Damen said, _“It’s not like Vere, we don’t watch people doing it in public.”_

                Tried to declare himself…

_“I still get caught up near the end. I know I forget myself.”_

                Laurent, the Veretian prince; such position came with the necessity to hold his head high and set his pose to command respect. But tension too, pulled his shoulders taught, shallowed his breath. Another moment, another, and another— Laurent commanded his mind to work and his lips to move and his tongue to speak!

_“When you kissed me, I liked it. When you took me in your mouth, it was the first time that I had… done that. I liked it when you—”_

                Damen had pushed himself upright and Laurent could feel what was coming. His blood ran cold but his skin felt hot. Hesitation and eagerness colliding; it was brilliant!

 _“I’m not your slave, I’m a man,”_ said Damen. Damen’s hand was on the back of his neck now, fingers just brushing his hair. Kissing distance yet Damen was only looking at him. The anticipation was awful. _“It’s me. It’s me, here with you. Say my name.”_

                _“Damianos.”_

**Author's Note:**

> The title was very difficult to come up with, but I ended with a lyric by fun. "May your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground/Carry on"
> 
> A handful of you may remember something I posted to this site a few months ago... this fic was my penance for such stupidity. I reread the ENTIRE series, all three books, to see what crucial pieces of Laurent's character I was missing.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, what did you like about it? What did you not like? Is it in character, out of character? Let me know!


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